*Photo courtesy of the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau
Aloha and welcome to The Tasty Island!
A blog site of my experiences enjoying the wonderful food of Hawaii, with a focus on Honolulu on the island of Oahu. This includes recipes and reviews of eateries ranging from the neighborhood plate lunch stand to fine dining restaurants.
Comments are welcome and certainly appreciated, provided they are in good taste.
All reviews here are express personal opinions and not paid endorsements. All editorials and photographs are original work of this site, unless otherwise noted.
You are free to use any text copy, photos and/or intellectual content from this site, with or without permission, provided the intent you incorporate and/or display it are within the context and respect of this site, which is all about the GOOD NATURE of FOOD and EATING FOOD. At the same time, it would be nice if you link back to this site for reference to any content resourced from TheTastyIslandHawaii.com.
Mahalo for visiting,
Pomai
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SPAM MUSUBI RATING SYSTEM
The Tasty Island uses an informal rating system based on Hawaii’s very own Spam Musubi icon. Informal, meaning that the “Musubi Grade” isn’t mathematically averaged from total point scores on a set of various criteria, but simply by my overall impression of the restaurant, item or recipe at hand.
There’s undoubtedly other websites out there with the same or similar grade icon. Still, it’s another fun, simple and easy way to identify with visitors that The Tasty Island truly has Hawaii in its heart.
The Tasty Island Spam Musubi Rating System:
(5) Superb. Worthy of repeat visits or purchases. (Broke Da’ Mout’!)
(4) Excellent. Worth another visit or purchase. (Winnahz!)
(3) Very Good. Considerable of another visit or purchase. (Supah’ Ono!)
(2) Good. I’m glad I tried it. (Ono)
(1) Average. (She Go)
Notice there isn’t any grade below average as I don’t want to go into “bashing” territory here. If an item is included and is below average, I may make a note of it and that’s it. If it’s so bad that it reduces my entire impression of the product or restaurant, then that said place or product will simply not be qualified to be posted on this blogsite.
After all, this isn’t the “yucky” island, it’s The TASTY Island!
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Quick facts about The Tasty Island blog site:
- Established: June 8, 2006
- Former domain as of 6/08/06: http://tastyisland.wordpress.com; new domain as of 10/17/09: http://www.tastyislandhawaii.com
- Food categories: All ethnic flavors (as time permits)
- Coverage area: Primarily Oahu, with additions from travels to the neighbor islands of Hawaii
- Expected frequency of new posts: Weekly; sometimes more often than that, sometimes a bit longer
- Who inspired you to do this? A school teacher
- Why do you do this? A) I love to eat; and B) I love to write
- Cameras for photographs: Canon Powershot A510 & G7, Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5 (as of 9/14/08)
- Contact: pomai<at>tastyislandhawaii<dot>com
Quick facts about Pomai
- Born and raised on Oahu; originally from Kaneohe on da’ Windward side
- Currently works, plays and resides in Honolulu
- Attached, single male of Portuguese/German/English/Hawaiian ethnicity
- Favorite Cuisine: Japanese and Pacific/Hawaii Regional, yet open to the world when it comes to food and life!
- Contact: pomai<at>tastyislandhawaii<dot>com
The Tasty Island in the News:
- Restaurant-hopping with the Honolulu Advertiser
- Driving customer traffic by any means necessary – Honolulu Star Bulletin
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Pomai,
I really enjoy your blog and wrote a article/post on my website about the tasty island…hope you like it!http://pacificreader.com/?p=973
Taryn
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Taryn, looks good! Mahalo!
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Great blog.
It helps to plan my foodie strategy when I visit in October.
Keep it up.
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Pomai, I stumbled upon Tasty Island while researching places to eat for our trip to Maui (from da Mainland). Your blog has been super helpful — we’re now taking home No-Ka-Oi Portuguese sausage and Iwamoto Natto undried saimin b/c of you! Didn’t make it to Sam Sato’s but can’t wait to try your version of dry mein. Mahalo!
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I am sooo hungry now after reading your words and seeing your pictures, and I already ate my dinner. If I close my eyes and wish really hard to be in Hawaii right now eating at some of these yummy places, will I be there when I open them. Mahalo for taking me to these places. Can hardly wait for my next visit to try ‘em out.
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Hello Pomai:
Are you aware of any Indonesian restaurants on Oahu now? There used to be the Bali Indonesia Restaurant across from McCully Shopping Plaza, but the last time I was there, it was gone…..
Know of any others? Plans to critique any soon?
I’ve been enjoying your site…..
All the best,
Mark
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Mark, we had lunch at Bali Indonesian Restaurant once a long time ago. I can’t remember much about the food though, except that it was a buffet and it was really cheap. Like just $6, or something like that. That property is now a storage facility. Ugh.
Looking at the directory on Yelp, there’s currently no Honolulu listings for Indonesian restaurants. If I find any more information, I’ll get back to you.
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great blog!!
I like to see your report:-)
I lived in Honolulu 2years ago.
When I lived there, I always go out with my roommate to try out
the food one restaurant after another.By the way,can you speak Japanese?
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yo, domo arigato gozaimasu, soshite, sukoshi dake.
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Hey Pomai… wheah you stay?
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Dear Pomai,
I just want to say that I’ve love your food blog. I’ve been following it for a few years now. I’m a mainlander but visit the islands when I can…this time I’ll be visiting the big island for a week. I’ve been doing my research on restaurants, of course, but do you have any places to suggest? Places that are around 4-5 spam musubi’s?
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Plezzzzzzzz…….call email me. I need you help again!
Mahalo
Auntie Pupule
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This is one of the greatest food sites EVER!! I’m in the Marines and been trying to get home for about 3 years now but I never have a chance, Decided to explain to one of my haole friends just how awesome a spam musubi really is and BLAM! You have a rating scale that revolves around it! I got off of a 26 hour duty and ended up cruzin your site for about 2 hours. The next time you go to the BI you gotta write a review on Tex malasada’s and post some pics! Aloha man and thanks for eating!
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Hi Pomai:
I’m planning to head back to oahu come november and try out all the places i’ve listed from your website. I have about a dozen i’ve wanted to try in counting.
Unfortunetly alot of your awesome pictures are no longer available (pictures start disappearing sometime april 2009). Do you plan on reposting those pictures anytime soon?
Thanks.
Danny
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Aloha Danny,
I changed my domain name and site host about that time, and am still going through my archives fixing broken photo links. Don’t worry, I still have all the photos. A reader hooked me up with a WordPress plug-in that should be a quick fix. I’ll get to that ASAP.
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Keone, big mahalo for the compliments, and even bigger mahalo for serving our great country! My brother-in-law used to be stationed at KMCAS (when it was called that).
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You’re the best Pomai. I look forward to reading your blog everyday. It’s not only informative but also very entertaining. Just great! I have another quick question and I know you can answer it readily with no problem.
I’ve always wondered how Manapua outlets like Libbys, Chun Wah Kam, Royal Kitchen, and Char Hung Sut have always manged to get their Manapua perfectly “round” and smooth. For the lack of a better term or technique are they shaping their manapua by hand or is it the machinery they’re using? Curious my brother. Just being curious. Mahalo plenty Pomai. -
Paki, I honestly can’t answer that question, as every time I’ve gone to the manapua shops, all the manapuas were already made and sitting in warmers ready for sale. You’d think with the volume they produce and uniformity of each manapua, that it is a machine doing it.
Now you have me inspired to do another “Unwrapped” style video of them making manapua, like I did of the Mandoo machine at Grant’s Grill Mandoo Express. I’ll hit-up Char Hung Sut or Chun Wah Kam and see if they’ll let me do a video shoot.
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Looking forward to that video if you can make it happen Pomai. I remain confident that you’ll be able to address an age old curiosity that I’ve had for the longest time. Mahalo plenty Pomai!
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You should do a post trying to explain how “Hawaii Toast” became popular in Germany?
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